Singer, songwriter, producer Joe Henry performs in Boston

Friday

Dec 1, 2017 at 6:15 AM

By Jay N. Miller/For The Patriot Ledger

Joe Henry was already well into his career as a songwriter of unique talents, and a thirst for experimenting with styles, when another career path also opened up. Some friends asked Henry to produce their albums, and before long the Michigan native was collecting Grammy’s and getting as much work as he could handle as a producer.

But Henry never stopped turning out his own original music, and he has a brand new album “Thrum,” just out on E-A-R Music, and he’ll playing at the City Winery in Boston on Thursday.

The new album is spare and haunting, and while it won’t be a huge shock for fans of Henry’s previous Americana-tinged music, there’s an ethereal feel to it, with jazz shadings courtesy of son Levon Henry on various woodwinds and Patrick Warren on piano, along with Henry’s stellar acoustic guitar work, and the longtime Henry rhythm section of bassist David Piltch, and Berklee College product Jay Bellerose on drums.

Thematically, it is hard to encapsulate the subject matter of these deeply poetic, impressionist songs, with their evocative imagery, tantalizing metaphors, and surreal auras. Henry’s songs all have such a precise sense of poetic meter they entice the listener into their hypnotic spell, and then the soundscapes he and his band create manage to be both intimately engaging, and otherworldly. That’s no mean feat, but the result is that the listener feels like the band is in the room with them, yet the music seems like it’s floated in from another dimension.

Basically, we’d suggest the songs are about fear and uncertainty, and somehow managing to pilot yourself through those hard times and doubts. “The Dark is Light Enough,” for example, seems like a rumination on whether to withdraw or engage with the world, framed by a wonderful piano figure, and accented by pedal steel and clarinet. “Keep Us In Song” is a gentle ballad that seems to suggest when the outside world is untenable, finding refuge in another person is one solution. And the classic Celtic ballad feel of “Blood of the Forgotten Song” is a stately, melancholy reminder not to let chances pass by, to take action when you can – consider this lovely verse: “There’s nothing divine in the marking of time, For it slips every frame we intend, A river above us, it laughs at and loves us, Confusing our beginnings and ends.”

“I’d say the songs are about all those things,” said Henry from his Los Angeles area home last week. “I’d be hard pressed to tell you exactly what the songs meant in some cases, but I think fear and trembling is something we are seeing today, as people, and as a nation. The political moment is part of the moment we stand in, but I’ve never written songs to address a political moment. I don’t want that kind of authority. I’m more interested in looking at what does fear and trembling do to us as individuals? How do we abide and continue in times like these?

“I always want to write about things that challenge us as human beings,” Henry continued. “How we all try to deal with the inevitable, stand in the moment, and abide it, or don’t. I think that’s much more interesting conceptually than writing about a specific event. Your songs could be dated that way too. Not that someone shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing right now, but I feel we are all called to give voice to our own vision of things. However artists want to write and create, I will admire and love anybody who shows up. I spent a lot of years eschewing anything like that in my writing, but now I just try to be authentic to what the songs mean – and sometimes songs mean different things to different people, so if some people see commentary in these songs, that’s their right.”

Henry, a University of Michigan graduate, has now released 14 albums of his own material, and almost from the start it has defied the commercial market. His 2014 album, “Invisible Hour,” featured guests like the Milk Carton Kids, and Lisa Hannigan, and was seen by many as a complex, nuanced view of marriage.

“Sometimes writers offer the public a way in, when you’ve done something like that,” said Henry. “It becomes the only way in to the material, after the fact. Things in there seemed to be about marriage, but not necessarily my own. I’ve just found that it’s easier if I stayed away from songs that were too close, and so those are more of an aerial view. That’s what connects better with more people. But, yes, there’s a strong thread throughout that album about what it means to be in a committed relationship.”

Henry, 56, has been married for 30 years to Melanie Ciccone, having grown up with her and her sister in Michigan. Ironically having his sister-in-law re-purpose some of his tunes for her own work has brought Henry some of his biggest exposure. That sister-in-law is Madonna, and her re-worked versions of a couple Henry songs on her “Hard Candy” and “MDNA” albums – most notably her hit single “Don’t Tell Me,” a reworking of his song “Stop” – have been very rewarding for him. Madonna has referred to Henry as “a lyrical giant.”

But his production work has also been a huge success over the past two decades, as he’s produced albums for an endless list of top shelf artists, like Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, Rodney Crowell, Aimee Mann, Aaron Neville, Bonnie Raitt, Bettye LaVette, Ani DiFranco and John Doe. Henry was awarded a Grammy in 2006 for producing soul legend Solomon Burke’s “Don’t Give Up On Me” album, and repeated with Grammy wins for a Ramblin Jack Elliott album in 2009, and a Carolina Chocolate Drops album in 2010.

“There’s no way I couldn’t be impacted by working with artists I admire like that,” said Henry. “First and foremost, I am a singer and songwriter myself – I may be acting as a producer at times, but that is my orientation. I never hung out my shingle as a producer, but I just found myself being asked. It was satisfying in a way I didn’t anticipate. Not wanting to be limited, I had started learning about it as an apprentice to T-Bone Burnett. But I was really surprised to learn that producing was equally satisfying, not different than writing and playing. At the end of the day, you’re trying to make something meaningful come out of a pair of speakers. The more lessons I learned there, the more I could take back to my own work, so it was positive in every way.”

One notable album Henry produced was Susan Tedeschi’s 2005 solo work “Hope and Desire.” We asked Henry for his memories of working with the Norwell native.

“I knew Susan was a really fine and soulful singer coming into that one,” Henry explained. “I just wanted to frame that, and also make it feel alive. My belief is that you never want to hear a production idea, but you want to be seduced by the sound. If you ever listen to any record I produce and your reaction is how clever he is, then I’ve missed it. I want the gulf between artist and listener to disappear, for the music to feel alive and undeniably engaging. My memory of Susan is that she was there immediately, with capturing that live feel, and so into the process, it was a real pleasure to work with her.”

Henry also noted that hearing the new songs in concert may include some surprises, although it will be basically the same band.

“I’ve never held back in the studio, based on what we can do live,” said Henry. “I feel completely liberated from being true to the studio versions when we do them live. You always hope the songs evolve. Remember, when we’re doing them in the studio, in three or four takes, those are the first times we’ve ever played those songs, so we’re all in full discovery mode. The albums are documenting that initial discovery. When we perform live, your engagement with the other musicians and the audience is a big part of the experience, and the words and music reveal themselves to you over time. You can’t have lyrics or music independently; they have to disappear into each other.”